Roger de la FRESNAYE (1885-1925)

Study for the factory chimney, 1913 Oil on canvas, trace of date lower right 33 x 41 cm Exhibition: "Roger de la Fresnaye, le noble cubiste", Museo d'Arte Mendrisio, October 22, 2023 - February 4, 2024, reproduced under N°54, page 103 of the catalog. The painting presented here is a discovery, part of the artist's work on the Meulan series. It bears many similarities in both color palette and composition to a 1912 painting entitled "La cheminée d'usine" (Factory Chimney), reproduced and described as N°106, page 146 in the Catalogue Raisonné de Roger de la Fresnaye, by Germain Seligman, Éditions Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel, 1969. After scientific analysis, infrared images revealed that there was a first subject painted in oil beneath the visible one. This was a mountain landscape, typical of the artist's work between 1907 and 1909. We find this type of subject of the same dimensions referenced in the Catalogue Raisonné by Germain Seligman, as N°10 reproduced and described on page 115.